The Trouble with Josh
by NobodyToldYaThisIsGonnaFoldYa
Summary: Josh Ramsay of the band Marianas Trench is having problems. Who will be there for him?


"Trouble with Josh"

It was 3am and the stage was still littered with debris from the night's concert. The crowd had long gone, taking most traces of their appearance along with them, leaving behind only discarded gum wrappers, drink bottles and the occasional souvenir that someone had forgotten they had bought before the show. The sweaty, musky smell of the theater still hung in the air, and it was a familiar one. She had been to enough shows to know that it didn't matter where the band played; this was a smell that never changed and never failed to aid in the excitement. The house lights had been turned off, leaving only a faint iridescent glow and a low grade buzzing that came from the ceiling lights. Even those were a bit too bright for her after the flash of the strobe lights during the concert.

She carefully picked her way through the boxed up equipment stacked backstage, waiting to be loaded into the trailer and towed behind the tour bus to the next city, wherever that might be. She hadn't checked the agenda this time. Her first priority was to find Josh. After his spectacular performance with the rest of the band, he was let loose from the harness in which he used to fly over the audience, he bowed, thanked the crowd and disappeared backstage. The trouble was, he was now nowhere to be found. The rest of the band had ventured outside to sign a few autographs and smile for some photos with fans and were now back on the tour bus unwinding and chattering about how well the show went tonight. It was a good ego boost after the last show nearly bombed and the boys deserved a good thing every chance they got.

Letting her eyes adjust to the odd new lighting, which was disconcerting as it was not ideal, she squinted a bit until she was comfortably able to glance around at her surroundings. She kicked a discarded, empty water bottle out of her path and a figure at the edge of the stage jumped as if scared by the sudden skittering noise of the plastic as it rolled along the floor. "Josh?" she asked quietly and slowly started to walk toward him, suddenly slightly afraid that if she moved too quickly, she'd scare him off. It looked like he needed a bit of space, so she wanted to tread lightly around whatever matter was going on inside his head.

He didn't answer, but merely hunched over a bit farther. She knew she should let him be for the moment, but now she was worried. Josh was usually extremely amped up after a show and it took him hours to settle down. Seeing him this subdued and quiet worried her. She wasn't just a stylist that traveled with the band, she had become friends with each of the boys and the crew and she felt protective of every one of them. Still proceeding cautiously, she stood off to his side so he could choose to look at her any time he liked, but wasn't forced to make eye contact. She stuck her hands in her pockets just for something to do because she desperately wanted to brush his faded, matted, sweaty after-concert blue hair out of his eyes, but it didn't seem to bother him for now.  
Moments passed and there was nothing but silence between them. She knew Josh would talk if he had something to say. He wasn't a quiet man by any means most of the time. Usually they couldn't get him to stop talking long enough to get a few words into a conversation, but since she was a woman of few words herself, this suited her just fine. She almost said his name again softly when she noticed that he was nearly sitting on the set list from the show and was absent-mindedly running a finger over the tape holding it to the stage.  
She watched for another moment or two. He knew she was there, but he wasn't in a talkative mood, it seemed. She had to get him back on the bus eventually, because they were rolling out of…whatever city they were in by 5am and she truly didn't want to wind up having to share a cab ride for a thousand miles. Even being the only female on the bus was preferable to that. Pulling her hand out of her pocket, she checked her watch. It was still only a little after three now, so there was still time, but she hoped Josh had seen the gesture out of the corner of his eye. If he did, he didn't acknowledge that either.

Sighing internally, she dreaded crossing any kind of lines with him. He was a sweet guy, but when he wanted his space, he could become a tad surly and that wasn't a side she wanted to be on. It was hard when so many people lived together for so long and shared such a small space. Grudges could be held easily when you can't get away from the person you're upset with. Being that she felt so passionately about each one of the band members, she truly never wanted to upset them.  
She knelt down on one knee so she was eye-level to him and quietly said his name in neither a question, nor a statement. It sounded so strange to hear his name being spoken that way that he looked up, his eyes a little wider than usual. "Josh?" she said again, questioning him this time.  
"Yeah…I know…," he responded, matching her tone.  
"No, honey, we don't have to go yet. I just came to find you. All the guys are back on the bus and the life of the party wasn't there, so they kicked me off the bus to come track you down," she said gently, but playfully. A smile barely touched his lips and he reached up to finally shove his hair back from his face. "What's up? You're not usually one to hang out alone in an empty arena after a show is over." She risked sitting and swung her legs over the edge of the stage next to him so that they were nearly shoulder-to-shoulder.  
He shrugged a little. "It's fine. It's ok. I'll head out there in a little while. Tell the guys to be ready because I'm gonna have a ton of energy to get out after this one." His words seemed forced, as if he was only telling her what she wanted to hear.  
"Nah…I think I'll stay here for a bit longer if that's ok. Good company is sometimes hard to find and I'll let the guys sweat it out for a while. They don't need to know I found you yet." He shot her a slight grateful smile and went back to playing with the tape on the set list against his opposite side. "So, why the quiet? This isn't the prank playing, boisterous Josh I've come to know and love."  
Suddenly he put his palms against the stage and shoved himself off. The sound of his shoes hitting the floor echoed in the empty space and she mentally back-peddled, hoping against hope that she didn't press him too hard. She was always afraid she would do that to him especially. He could talk about anything and make it funny or interesting, but she knew how hard it was for him to talk about himself seriously. She could read through all of those social media posts he made where he called himself a 'douche' and an 'ass' in many different ways. She also knew that he tried to be a lot of things, but those things were not who he truly was. It was simply a part he portrayed, more or less as a joke. He was so good at it that people sometimes started to believe it, but she knew better by now.  
Instead of walking off, he held out his hand to her. She semi-reluctantly took it, feeling years of calloused fingers and palm brought on by simply being a musician against her own hand. She pushed herself off the stage with her opposite hand and her shoes slapped against the cold cement floor with an echo just like his a few seconds prior. Without a word, he led her up the steps to the highest seats in the theater. The chairs were barely noticeable now that the lights had been dimmed and a shadow fell across the upper back half of the venue. Josh walked halfway down the row of chairs before sitting down. She sat down next to him and watched as he tried to fold his long, lanky body into a comfortable position, finally settling on stretching his legs out in front of him and propping his feet, crossed at the ankles, on the back of the chair in front of him. He did this all without letting go of her hand.  
She was thoroughly confused by now, as this was the first time she had ever had any physical contact with Josh aside from dying his hair and making sure his clothes were on straight. They were friends, but they weren't overly affectionate. She couldn't afford to be that way with anyone on the tour bus or she could risk losing her job, so this concerned her, not that she said anything.  
He tucked her arm under his and pulled both of their arms across his stomach. There they sat in quiet, listening to that same humming coming from the lights down below. Eventually janitors would come through and sweep up, getting rid of any evidence that such a great band had spent three hours here, bringing people to tears, shattering their hearts and mending them again, all for the cost of less than a tank of gas. The magic would be gone just like that.  
She was lost in her own thoughts and she barely noticed that Josh had taken a shallow, shuddering breath that she could feel against his stomach. His hand squeezed hers a bit before he finally began to speak. "Don't…don't look at me. This is hard…I can't do this face to face." She nodded, but respected that and slunk down into her seat a little further to try to gain that much more obscurity from the shadows. "I'm just…I'm having a hard time right now. It's not new. I've been dealing with this since six or seven concerts ago and you're the only once that's noticed."  
She wanted to acknowledge what he said, but didn't want to ruin his moment, so she lightly ran her thumb over the back of his hand a couple times just to show she head him. "The show we played that night…it was small, so I only played half the set list and I decided to let the audience choose the other half. I know these are my songs…our songs…but fuck me…these guys picked every hard song I had. By the time I was five songs into that, I had already gone through "By Now", "Fallout", "Porcelain", "Skin and Bones" and "So Soon", and then they requested "Lover Dearest". I usually try to avoid that one. I know it means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to a lot of people, but it just…I dunno…" His voice dropped off.  
She knew what he meant but she wanted him to own it. She wanted him to say it. She shifted a little in her seat without moving the arm he had resting so comfortably against his body like some kind of security blanket. Very quietly, almost whispering, she coaxed him. "Yes…you do know. It's ok to tell me. We're the only ones here. You could scream it at the top of your lungs and no one would hear it but me."  
Josh paused momentarily, folding his legs and dropping his feet to the floor. He ducked his head so that his hair covered his right eye and threw a shadow across the rest of his face. "It just brings everything back again. I know…logically…that I'm clean. I'm sober. It's been ten fucking years. When am I going to stop letting this get to me? I can do the song most nights without a problem. Then there's nights like that one Cleveland show and it all…fucking…comes…back. It's not the urge to get high, it's not a need to drink, it's not even the bulimia…it's just…all the feelings. Suddenly I'm 17 again and terrified of going to rehab. I'm 17 and getting kicked out of school. I'm 17 and having to tell my parents the truth about everything. You don't know this unless Mike, Matt or Ian opened their mouths, but some nights, that song is on the set list and right as the last song ends, I have to turn to the guys and tell them that we're doing another song because I just can't handle it. I'm just…so tired…"  
She slowly let go of Josh's hand. He resisted a bit at first, thinking she was going to let him speak his piece and then just walk away. Instead, he let her go and she moved her hand to his shoulder and squeezed it a little. "You'll be ok," she whispered. "You've made it this far and it's not as scary as it all was when it first happened. You're older...maybe not any wiser," she cracked, "but you're stronger. You've got the entire band behind you, and apparently they can all keep secrets extremely well because I knew none of this. So they're loyal almost to a fault. You aren't alone in this like you were before. You aren't 17 anymore. I know that doesn't help a whole lot, but maybe it's a start. If there's a song you don't want to sing, there's nothing that says you have to. If people want to listen to it, they can just buy the cd like everyone else." She smiled a little, this time, working up the nerve to let go of his shoulder and brush his hair out of his eyes again.  
"No more hiding. You are who you are and the truth is, you've made it known about your past. If anything, people respect you more for that. Not because you had yourself so far gone that you needed rehab, but because you escaped. You got out alive and healthy and people look up to that."  
Josh started to protest, but she cut him off and grabbed his hand again. "I know…I know how you feel about all of that 'role model' stuff and that's not what I'm saying. People don't have to call you a role model, but it's ok if they look up to you. You're someone worth looking up to because you took a bad situation and turned it into all this." She gestured to the empty arena in front of them. People came here to see you realize your dream tonight. Back then, did you ever think that would happen?"  
"No," he said slowly, as if remembering past conversations he had with himself as a teenager. "I truly thought I would be dead before I hit 21."  
"And now…look at everything you have and everything you've accomplished. Are you really trying to tell me that all of this and everything you've done for yourself isn't worth looking up to?" She smiled at him, getting a bit overly excited at cheering him on, simply because a feeling of pride for her friend had risen in her and she wanted to brag about his accomplishments, even if it was only to the one person who had actually lived it.  
"I…suppose…if you have to put it that way, I'm ok with it," Josh said. He truly was a humble person when you got beneath the cocky performer exterior he showed the world because they expected it.  
She had since shifted to the edge of her seat while trying to get him to realize that it was ok for him to accept the great things he had overcome and hadn't realized that he had been slowly shrinking away from her and had pulled one leg up to put a foot on the chair he was sitting in, while simultaneously resting his chin on his knee.  
She cupped a hand under Josh's chin and raised his face a bit. "Look, kiddo…I understand everything you've been through and believe me…I know that even years later, it still lingers. But you're far from alone and you're far from where you used to be. It's ok to tell us when you're having a hard time. I think I can speak for the rest of the group when I say that we'll all do our best to get you through it when it happens. We all care about you too much to let you fall. "Cross my heart and hope to die."" she said, smiling and quoting one of his songs.  
At that, he smiled and pulled away from her hand, flipping his hair back from his face, yet again. "You've been waiting for that one, haven't you? "  
"Uh huh! Longer than you realize!"  
Josh laughed a little and played with his tongue ring inside his mouth a little, acting as if he was trying to work up the nerve to say something. She settled back into her seat and continued to stare at the theater before her. She could never get enough of this feeling, just sitting in a venue where so many great bands had played, so she let Josh mull over his thoughts without feeling the need to drag it out of him. He would talk. Especially after all they had just said in the privacy of their dark balcony seats.  
"Have…have you ever had this really odd sensation that makes you feel like a little kid again…" She nodded so as not to break his flow of words. "And all you want is to be hugged and told that you'll be ok?" He hadn't looked at her when he said it, but his voice sounded a little shaky and nervous. Josh, for once, hadn't known how to phrase his words. He didn't want to plead or sound vulnerable, but he hadn't succeeded at either of those.  
Figuring he had opened up enough tonight, she opened her arms, letting him know that she was willing to comfort him and give him a bit of a 'safe space' to just relax and breathe without having to feel like he needed to put on an act.  
Prior to her finding him sitting on the stage, Josh had taken off his jacket, but had grabbed it when he took a flying leap off the edge. He had dropped it in the seat next to him when they sat down. Now he reached for it as he turned in his seat to pull it around himself like a blanket. He moved enough to fold one leg up under himself and she wrapped her arms around him as he leaned against her. She rubbed his back a little and quietly spent the next few minutes telling him that he would be ok, that things would be better and that he had everyone he was traveling with and then some who would take it upon themselves to make sure he would be fine. Every now and again he would nod a little or clutch his jacket a little tighter around himself until about three minutes into her rambling, she felt Josh relax.  
He had fallen asleep, which was both good and bad. She knew how taxing it could be to have all of those things churning around inside one's head and he needed the sleep. But she would also have to wake him up, which she would feel awful doing since he got so little sleep as it was.  
There was a muffled noise coming from a row of seats somewhere behind them and she turned her head to see what it was. Two rows behind them sat the Ian, Mike and Matt, the other three members of the band. Mike was the first to move, standing up and climbing over the row between them to sit down just behind Josh. He spoke just quietly in his comforting tone with lilting Canadian accent. "We wondered where you disappeared to. The bus leaves in half an hour. Is he ok?"  
"Well," she started, "that all depends on how long you were sitting there and what Josh wants you to know."  
Murmuring against her shoulder without opening his eyes, Josh said, "he's fine…and if I know these guys, they were sitting there the whole time." She looked back at Matt and Ian. Matt was suddenly interested in his boot laces and Ian nodded a little and folded his hands back behind his head.  
"C'mon, man," Mike said patting Josh on the shoulder. "Gotta go! We have to play a show in Jersey tomorrow and we won't make it if we don't leave on time."  
"I'm up…I'm up…we have to find a vending machine. I need caffeine," Josh said staggering to his feet and rubbing his eyes.  
"No you don't. You need sleep," Ian pointed out from two rows back as he and Matt stood and stretched a bit.  
"I can sleep when I'm dead," Josh declared as he bounded over the row of seats in front of him and proceeded to hitch-kick his way down the wide stairs that led down to the stage.  
Matt smiled and shook his head. "He's back. He'll be fine."

~~  
PS: I intentionally do NOT name my female lead characters, as I find it's easier for any of you who read it to put yourselves into 'her' shoes if she's nameless.


End file.
